Dear community,
I got a question about printing with woodfill.
We own 2 different printers, the UM2+ and the UM3. On our current project we use woodfill on both our printers. The UM2+ prints how it should be, high quality with little to no mistakes (woodfill can be rough to print with). The UM3 does the opposite, it doesnt print steadily, it shows gaps, rugged walls and is just poor quality (see images attached). While in Cura i keep the same settings for both printers and just change the printer with each file (settings attached in images).
Also, i checked the files, there is nothing wrong (as the next file, with the same settings and exports prints perfectly). As seen in the images, sometimes it's really rugged, the next time it's a bit less.
We checked our printhead for the UM3, but that is as clean as it can get. The feeder works fine aswell.
Any of you have an idea what could cause this?
Kind regards,
Floris

@Brulti,
I will look into Blender, thanks for the tip:).
I found a cleanup tool for Sketchup (Clean-up 3), which cleaned every line that is not needed in seconds, that helped alot.
Regarding to exporting from sketchup to Cura, what do u recommend file wise? I'm using .obj at this point.
i'm asking this because we are trying to print with 2 colors but this doesnt go well. The second color just screws up in the first few layers.
All settings are correct, using PLA we use 2 x 0.4mm AA nozzles (both cleaned) and the printer is callibrated. using the second nozzle on the first and the first on the second gives the same result.
Off topic but maby u have an answer to that aswell:).

Hi everyone,
I got a question regarding importing STL file, specifically into Sketchup.
We want to print a 3 story house (every floor seperatly). I got all the floors as an STL file from the Architect.
To print the floors we need to split them in segments as the scale will be 1:50.
Only the STL files show up as this:
Its a real work to remove all the extra lines that are not needed (as STL creates triangles out of every surface).
Is there another way to import an STL into sketchup without all the extra lines?
Thanks in advance.
Floris

@geert_2,
I checked the colorfabb colors with the sandy look. That might be just the answer for our next job! thanks.
@SandervG,
The Woodfill came from our local dealer of fillaments and 3D printers, i trust their expertise so i dont think the quality is low.
The business is growing at a nice pace! getting more and more clients.

Hello everyone,
I got a question about the usage of woodfill PLA. Last week we finished a scaled model of an old church. Our client asked for a more 'natural' look of colors.
So we decided to use 3 different woodfill PLA's (see images).
What we noticed right away was the difficult usage of the woodfill, most of the times it would either over or underextrude while also taking a fair amount of time to print.
We used a 0.8 nozzle (0.4 would clog), .2mm layer height, thick walls (3 layers) and a printspeed of 60mm/s.
Does anyone have any experience printing scaled models using this type of PLA and can share their Cura settings? Since our business is growing im making standard cura setting profiles for all the different printing materials:)
Thanks in advance!

Hi Sander!
I'm doing fine thanks. how are you?
Been really busy with my job and the company lately so i forgot to post the results. Starting next week i will have an extra day to spend for the company. will post all the results by then.
since we last spoke we printed:
- 3 architectural buildings
- a big project on smaller houses for elderly
- a mallstreet
as a little foretaste, here's an image of the mallstreet that is finished partly today.
The overhang parts go very well! when it gets over 5 mm we use an angled structure beneath the overhang to let the printer build it bit by bit. This really works for us + gives us new ways of printing. took the printer 40 hours to print this ( in 3 parts). We continue to print the rest of the mallstreet starting today.
@Stefania Dinea
The miniatures look really nice!
did u print them standing up or glued the base to the miniature ( printed flat)?
never used rhino before ( mainly autocad fan;p). does it work better/worse/same as sketchup, 3D wise?
Could u share some images of the 3D printed landscape!? i have been wondering about that part of Urban design for a while. As for printing we focus mainly on urban design buro's and architects, would like to expand our customerbase with landscape architects.
@3dyantramstudio
The design looks really good!
combination of sketchup and lumion ( or other render program)? we use Lumion daily at my job, has some great uses.
Did u try to 3D print the design?
would be really nice to have ur dreamhouse 3D printed on the side table;p

@shurik thank you very much! i would love to see some work of you.
i'm gonna try faster prints in a bit. experimenting with just wall print. how is your experience with that? would save alot of time i reckon. i could print the roofs seperatly.
I'm always willing to discuss this kind of work with anyone

@SandervG, i have a 0.8 nozzle, which after some settings tweaking worked like a charm.
Print is nearly finished, gonna start a new one right after. Il let you know what the results are of the faster print.

@SandervG thanks for the kind words .
All the materials that u see (besides the people, cars, trees and the printed plan) are printed with the Ultimaker 3. I used different colors for different parts of the appartmentcomplex.
everything is PLA based, besides the brown parts, they are a mix of PLA and wood, which on his own is a difficult fillament.

@SandervG,
i will try to do that. get the same speed for both. As i can see the fans work the same as they did when i bought the Ultimaker. After this print i will speed up the printing and see what happens.
As for your previous post about the lessons from other fellow architects/ urban designers. i am really up for that!

Hi (architectural) community!,
My name is Floris and i own a small business in printing scaled models for both architects and urban designers ( i myself am a urban designer). It started as a hobby/ interest to use the 3D prints in my workfield as an extra or advantage. I am still nowhere near a pro when it comes to knowing the in and outs of 3D printing / cura settings and getting the best result in the least amount of time (thats also the reason i joined this community, to learn).
Below are a few of my works, ranging from an entire new neighbourhood to a single high end appartment complex to a few new houses. Currently i am working on 3 scaled models for an architect, i will post the results when they are done.
For most of these models i used the following settings in Cura 3.1.0
Ultimaker 3
layer height: 0.2
top/bottem thickness: 1.2
wall thickness: 0.8
infill density : 15-30%
printing speed: 20 -50%
printing temp. 200 - 215 degrees
travel speed: 200mm/s

@Stefania Dinea Hi!
im pretty sure its not mechanical issues as i calibrate daily, cleaned the head, bowden tube and unscrewed the feeder just a tiny bit.
I would love to see the standard ultimaker settings as i cant find em online or know how to set them in Cura.
U print at a high speed haha
Does that give the same level of detail as my pictures show?
the thing is, whenever i go over 20 mm/s it starts to show tiny gaps. i might just go full 70mm/s and see if the big difference shows any result.

@SandervG thanks!
Yeah ofcourse i will. where should i post that?
In regards to my original post, i tweaked my settings a bit to get a better result for the next print( photo), i am using cura 3.1.0 btw.
Its a garage/ living area which will be connected to the main home. i will post the full result when its finished.
infill density: 25%
to/bottom thickness 1.2
wall thickness 0.6
printing speed is still at 20 mm/s - 210 degrees. whenever i go to 30 mm/s (and 50 mm/s for infill) it starts to show tiny gaps between my first (closed layers).